102 Minutes

The idea that the World Trade Center towers were indestructible, and that they could withstand both a bombing—as they did in 1993—and the impact of a jetliner smashing into one of them, is amisconception that is a major theme in 102 Minutes.

When engineers and architects conceived of the towers, they believed it signaled a new dawn in high-rise building construction, one that was supported by technological advances that made safety requirements in older buildings obsolete. Developers constructed the towers envisioning changes to the old 1938 city building code. However, because the Port Authority, which owned the trade centers and had interests in New York and New Jersey, and therefore was not legally subjected to New York City Code, developers promised the towers would comply with the newer 1968 code. This required half as many stairways, with less distance between them, and no longer required separate fire shafts that smoke could not penetrate. The code also eased fireproofing requirementsand allowed for far less masonry work and brick. The new towers, bolted seven stories beneath the ground, with fifteen miles of elevator shafts, stood as modern marvels.

“I believe the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door, this intense grid,” said Frank DeMartini, construction manager with the Port Authority in a January 2001 documentary about the towers, “[a]nd the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing the screen netting.